David Whitley: Phelps vs. Great White no fishier than Mayweather vs. McGregor

Tuesday

Jul 25, 2017 at 7:09 AMJul 25, 2017 at 7:57 AM

By David Whitley Orlando Sentinel

(TNS) — If you feel duped by the fact Michael Phelps did not actually race a great white shark on Sunday night, much less get eaten by one, do not totally despair.

There is a valuable lesson to be gleaned from the Discovery Channel’s “Phelps vs. Shark: Great Gold vs. Great White.”

And it might save you $99.95.

That’s the cost for Showtime’s Aug. 26 special when pay-per-fighting totally jumps the shark.

Floyd Mayweather is set to fight Conor McGregor, who has even less chance of winning than Phelps did of whipping a great white in a 100-meter race.

Anyone with the sense of a guppy knew Phelps was dead meat. But we tend to disconnect our brains from reality when it comes to these circuses.

Heck, stupid me thought Phelps might actually jump into the water next to Bruce and start paddling away.

I’m calling him Bruce because that’s the name the film crew gave the shark in “Jaws.”

Nothing against Phelps, but I sort of hoped the show would end with Richard Dreyfuss performing an autopsy on Bruce. He’d slice open its belly and start pulling out license plates, half-eaten tuna and 23 gold medals.

Now that would have been great TV.

Like millions of boxing and MMA fans are doing, I fell for the hype despite all the warnings that the showdown would be a dud.

For one thing, sharks can swim 25 mph. The fastest humans can do is about 6 mph.

For another thing, who in their right mind would believe a great white shark wouldn’t at least taste-test the competition right after the starting gun went off?

The same dopes who are betting against Mayweather, who has more advantages than Bruce did against Phelps. He and McGregor are using boxing rules, not MMA.

Talk about a fish out of water. Mayweather will land approximately 294 jabs for every right hook McGregor throws and misses.

But they also know the ticket-buying public has great white’s appetite for this fraud, so why not make an easy $100 million?

The most dramatic part of the whole has already happened. That was the whirlwind four-city hype tour two weeks ago, where the fighters took turns screaming offensive things in each other’s faces.

Give Bruce this. In hyping the Discovery Channel’s race, he had enough class not to show up in what appeared to be a dark blue pinstriped suit your local pastor might wear. The pinstripes were actually miniature lines featuring the words “[Bleep] Off.”

And unlike Mayweather, Phelps did not make fun of Bruce’s lack of nine-figure paydays by throwing dollar bills at him. The 23-time gold medalist even hinted on “Good Morning America” that the showdown might not be “all it was being cracked up to be.”

“We’re not in the water at the same exact time,” he said. “I think that’s the one thing we all _ we want everyone to know _ I was safe, which was number one. I had 12 to 14 divers underneath me when we were doing the race.”

I figured they were there with harpoons in case Bruce decided to over for a quick bite. As it turned out, Phelps and Bruce didn’t just race at different times.

They didn’t race at all. In the ultimate bait-and-switch, Bruce wasn’t even a shark.

He was computer simulation. I wanted to yell a pinstriped saying at the TV screen, but I quickly realized I was to blame for being such a sucker.

For the record, Bruce the fake shark beat Phelps the real human by two seconds. If Showtime scientists can somehow turn McGregor into a computer-simulated boxer, the upcoming fight might be as close.

Otherwise, consider yourselves warned, fight fans.

If you thought the Gold Medalist vs. the Great White was a fraud, what’s coming next is really going to bite.